Sunday 28 October will see the final chapter of City of York Council’s first Children’s Book Awards, when the overall winners will be announced in the company of two leading authors at a Grand Ceremony at York Explore Library Learning Centre.
The awards were launched in March when children under the age of 14 were invited to nominate their favourite story and picture books of all time. Following the nominations, a short list of five in each category was announced, and children had until 16 September to vote for their favourite.
The short-list was:
Picture books.
Eric Carle – The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Julia Donaldson – The Gruffalo
Debi Gliori – No Matter What
Pippa Goodhart – You Choose
Jill Murphy – Peace at Last.
Story books.
Adam Blade – Beast Quest Grashkor
Roald Dahl – Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Jeff Kinney – Diary of a Wimpy Kid
Andy Stanton – You’re a Bad Man, Mr Gum
Jacqueline Wilson – Little darlings.
The Grand Award Ceremony will not only announce the winners of the awards, but also host an afternoon full of events and activities. Nominated author Debi Gliori will be there to talk about writing stories, whilst Pippa Goodhart will be on hand signing copies and talking to children. Other activities will include storytelling and a short performance by York Theatre Royal’s Youth Theatre of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials.
Over June, July and August York libraries’ children’s fiction sections saw an increase of over 6,000 borrowings on the same period last year. The Children’s Book Awards are just one of this summer’s schemes to encourage children to increase their reading. Others included the Big City Read and the Summer Reading Challenge.
50 children who voted in the awards have been invited to attend the awards ceremony to thank them for taking part, and there are a limited number of tickets on offer to other children on a first-come basis available from York Explore (tel 01904 552828 or email exploreyork@york.gov.uk.)
The awards will be held at York Explore on Sunday 28 October from 2-4pm.